Monsters Inc.

The three episodes we watched for Tuesday share the common image of the monster within. Regardless of how good or innocent someone might seem, their appearance is only a veneer. They are still capable of evil. In "A New Man," Giles' inner monster comes out, and soon he is loping around Sunnydale, hiding his new demon form and speaking in a demon tongue. His transformation serves as a metaphor for his checkered past returning to haunt him in the form of past pal, Ethan Rayne. Giles may be Buffy's goody-two-shoes, former watcher, but he has also dabbled in dark magic. His new demon self is forced to form an alliance with the ambivalent Spike, their kinship another symptom of his transformation. Ultimately, Giles is unable to save himself and must rely on Buffy to recognize him and save him.

In "Goodbye Iowa," Riley must face the monster within as he comes to realize that he has been Maggie's pawn. She has been pumping him full of drugs that have been manipulating him. Not only is his inner monster emerging, but he has for some time been unaware of his own complicity in the process. Later, Adam says that he and Riley are the same. It's not until a later episode that Riley is able to "extract" the monster from within. Unlike Giles, he is able to save himself.

Oz returns in "New Moon Rising." Perhaps no one better emobodies the metaphor of monster within than Oz, with his struggle to control his inner werewolf. When he gets back to Sunnydale, he explains to Willow that he can now control his monthly werewolf flares. When he realizes that Willow and Tara are a couple, he loses control and transforms, nearly killing Tara. Once again, Whedon and his writers revisit the idea I discussed in a previous blog entry where the tenor of the metaphor (Oz's jealousy of Willow) is more frightening or dangerous than the vehicle (Oz as werewolf).